Middletown, May 24, 1862: How Stonewall Jackson Hit the Wrong End of Banks's Army

"It seems we were mistaken in our calculation." — Union Gen. Nathaniel Banks

On May 24, 1862, Stonewall Jackson's Confederates caught Nathaniel Banks's retreating Union column at Middletown, Virginia — and spent about two hours wrecking its tail, hours that could have been used to intercept the main body.

"Ashby's Charge at Middletown": Col. Turner Ashby's cavalry and artillery attack near the Valley Turnpike. Illustration from History of the Laurel Brigade*, 1907.*

Jackson's dilemma

By late May, the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862 was going well for the Confederates. After losing at First Kernstown in March, Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's forces had been reinforced and had won at McDowell and Front Royal. They had also kept Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks's Federals in the Valley, away from the Union invasion to the east aimed at the Confederate capital, Richmond. Jackson now wanted to trap and crush Banks's army near Strasburg.

The day after Front Royal, he faced a choice. "In the event of Banks leaving Strasburg he might escape toward the Potomac," he wrote later, "or if we moved directly to Winchester, he might move via Front Royal toward Washington City." So he sent troops toward both.

Wagons on the Valley Pike

That morning, Brig. Gen. George Steuart's Virginia cavalry rode to Newtown (now Stephens City), about ten miles north of Banks's base at Strasburg. They found an endless line of Federal supply wagons heading north on the Valley Pike to Winchester. The Confederates smashed into it and the teamsters fled — but, strangely, they did not burn the wagons, which would have blocked the Pike and badly slowed the retreat. Riding south, Steuart's men ran into Banks's main force near Middletown and were scattered.

Banks had already abandoned Strasburg. His column — most of his infantry, some artillery, Banks himself, and hundreds of fleeing civilians, most of them escaping enslavement — had crossed the Cedar Creek bridge. The officer temporarily commanding the rearguard chose to cross at a ford and leave the bridge standing, though Banks had left soldiers to burn it.

Jackson split his command again. Maj. Gen. Richard Ewell advanced cautiously on the Cedarville Road toward Winchester, while Brig. Gen. Richard Taylor took his Louisiana brigade, with artillery and Col. Turner Ashby's cavalry, west on the Chapel Road toward Middletown.

The running fight

Around 3:30 p.m., north of the town, Taylor's column saw more Federal wagons. His guns opened fire, doing terrific damage; most teamsters fled, and many exposed Federals were slaughtered in the streets. Jackson arrived about half an hour later, pleased but more interested in finding Banks's infantry. Not knowing most of it had already passed north, he sent Taylor south through Middletown.

Townspeople cheered the Confederates — "Everything… turned out to greet us, men, women, girls, children, dogs, cats, and chickens," one veteran wrote — and many of the Louisiana Zouaves in their baggy-trousered uniforms looted the abandoned wagons.

At the south end of town they were fired on. "As we jumped over the stonewall into the pike, a vicious volley of bullets whistled through our disordered ranks," remembered Private Henry Handerson of the 9th Louisiana. The shooters were Col. Charles H. T. Collis's Zouaves d'Afrique, a company of about a hundred men who served as Banks's headquarters guard. Banks had left them with the rearguard to get the last wagons out of Strasburg and destroy anything of military value, including the bridge.

Zouaves against Tigers

Collis's men fired three volleys from a stone wall beside the Pike, then fell back about half a mile to a ridge across from Belle Grove Plantation. The Louisianans probed from a distance without pressing, letting the isolated rearguard slip south across Cedar Creek — and this time the bridge was burned. The Federals waited in earthworks on Hupp's Hill near Strasburg, but the Confederates stayed north of the burning bridge. Collis and the rest of the rearguard then moved west, then north, and, unable to find Banks, marched on to Hancock, Maryland, on the Potomac, arriving May 26: over 140 miles in under two days.

Banks gets away

By 5:45 p.m., Jackson realized he faced only a rearguard and turned Taylor and Ewell north. Past dozens of captured or abandoned wagons — "the streets were lighted up by the burning of a commissary train, especially the flames from the burning bacon and from wagonloads of rice," one Confederate recalled — they chased Banks's column, but the 2nd Massachusetts, 27th Indiana and 28th New York held them off. The Federals reached the hills south of Winchester; the Confederates stopped north of Kernstown, some units not until the early hours of May 25, and many men on both sides collapsed from exhaustion. The fight resumed later that day at the First Battle of Winchester.

Where it happened

The fighting took place along US Route 11 in and around Middletown, partly on land now preserved as part of Cedar Creek Battlefield. Virginia historical highway marker A-16 stands on US Route 11 in downtown Middletown, in front of the Wayside Inn and Larrick's Tavern near First Street.

Sources

Based on "Engagement at Middletown on May 24, 1862," National Park Service, part of the series If This Valley Is Lost, Virginia Is Lost; a work of the United States government in the public domain.